ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS
fig.) 6 inches high, formed of hoops and staves, and covered with thin bronze plates which were embossed with scenes from the Gospel history (see fig.). This remarkable relic, now in a very fragile condition, is preserved in the national collection, and was happily illustrated in full at the time of its discovery. It resembles in shape a modern glass
tumbler of more than average size, and to judge from its elaborate ornamentation was intended for ceremonial use. The four panels contain (1) the monogram of Christ between the letters Alpha and Omega, the whole enclosed in a nimbus; (2) the Annunciation; (3) the Baptism of our Lord, above which appears an attempt to form the word IΩΑΝΝΗC (John); and (4) the marriage at Cana in Galilee.
The presence of secular relics in what may perhaps be regarded as a Christian burial is not unusual in this and other cemeteries of the period; and the thorough manner in which the exploration at Long Wittenham was carried out enables us to ascertain the comparative frequency of relics in graves of different directions. Though accident has rendered many of the interments unavailable for such calculations, it is clear that the custom of depositing weapons and ornaments with the dead
was less uniformly observed where the graves were orientated than in other cases, the figures being: head west, without relics, 27; head south-west, ditto, 9; other directions, ditto, 12. Mr. Akerman rightly insisted on the exceptional character of the interment containing the stoup, and suggested that the reversed spear [1] was intended to indicate that the child had been devoted to some religious office and thus renounced the martial attributes of his sex. Whatever the true explanation, it seems probable from this interment that a converted Saxon was so buried that he might rise and face the east; and that the inclusion of a weapon and other objects in a Christian grave was not impossible.
A bucket that presents a remarkable resemblance to that from Long Wittenham was found in a Merovingian cemetery at Miannay near Abbeville, Dept. Somme, France, and may well have come from the same workshop. On the bronze plating is embossed a representation of our Lord seated and trampling on the dragon, while on one side stand Adam and Eve, and on the other Daniel between Habakkuk and a lion. On a second fragment the figure of Habakkuk, with an angel above, is repeated, while throughout the field are inscriptions naming the figures, but not altogether clear [2]. It may be added that Daniel among the lions is the favourite subject for the decoration of bronze buckle-plates in Merovingian times, at least in the numerous cemeteries of Savoy and Switzerland ; and the bucket so ornamented from the north of France must be regarded as an isolated example. A similar piece of an embossed bronze-plated beaker was found in Rhenish Hesse, and has been published side by side with the Long Wittenham
- ↑ According to Prof. Soc. Antiq. iii. 34, the spear was reversed in graves of the Ripuarian Franks, but among the Salians was placed as among the Saxons, except in graves where the 'francisca' (battle-axe) occurs. An example of this last case is illustrated in C. Boulanger's Mobilier funéraire, pl. 36.
- ↑ M. Le Blant in Revue de l'art chrétien, ser. 2, ii. (1875), 89 and plate, figs. 1, 2; Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Picardie, xi. 139 and plate ; xii. (1876), 279.
